Tyler Hardcastle ’15 – This summer I’m interning with both of Andrew Shelton’s ’03 companies, TrackPack Coolers and Paramount Mold. J.J. Peller ’13 is also interning here in Fort Lauderdale and both of us are funded by the Small Business Internship Fund. In his blog earlier this summer, http://blogs.wabash.edu/littlegiants-bigresults/2012/06/07/insight-to-running-a-small-business/, J.J. wrote about our work with Paramount, a plastics company, so I though I’d write more about TrackPack Coolers.

The TrackPack chills twenty beverages that can be accessed from the backpack’s side pockets.  This is made possible by a plastic frame, placed inside the cooler (check out the video here, http://www.trackpackcoolers.com/servlet/StoreFront?disp=6#trackpackvideo. After acquiring Paramount Mold, Andrew Shelton moved the production of his frames to the factory. In the early weeks of our internships, J.J. and I were able to learn about the plastic injection process by watching (and helping) produce the frames for TrackPack Coolers.

The process begins when small pellets of soon-to-be plastic called “resin” are fed into a press where they are heated. When the resin is hot enough it is quickly injected through a barrel into a mold. As the mold fills with heated plastic the shape of the product, in this case the TrackPack frame, begins to form. When the product has been shaped, the mold cools and splits into its two halves and metal pins eject the product.

Last weekend we loaded the TrackPack RV with plenty of bags, frames, gel-packs, and headed up to the Coke Zero 400 in Daytona Beach, FL. TrackPack Coolers got its start at NASCAR races around Indiana, so Adam Andrews ’12 and Andrew Shelton wanted to start building a base of races to attend closer to the company’s new location.

We arrived early in the morning, the day before the race. Even before we had parked and unpacked our trailer three people came up and asked us how quickly they could buy a cooler. We broke even on the second day and kept selling from that point on.

The whole weekend was a great experience in learning how to make sales but also in how to plan an event for a small business. Going into the weekend, we had to budget out gas (an RV takes quite a bit), make sure we had the right inventory, and most importantly find a good location.

I am thankful to the SBIF, Andrew Shelton, and Wabash College for providing this opportunity. I encourage perspective and current students alike to pursue this program.

Tyler Hardcastle

Wabash College ’15